1. Tables in Lua have keys. Any value other than `nil` may be used as a key, including `0` if you so desire. 2. Lua's usage of `begin`/`end` was borrowed fr

1. Tables in Lua have keys. Any value other than `nil` may be used as a key, including `0` if you so desire. 2. Lua's usage of `begin`/`end` was borrowed from "Modula" according to the HOPL paper[1]. Probably Modula-2, but the timeframe would not exclude Modula-3 as a possibility, though I suppose it doesn't really matter. 3. I find this to be a poor argument, but I've never felt like I was missing out on a whole lot by not having modification operators in Lua, either. It's not something that comes up often enough that the couple extra keystrokes should be a deal-breaker. 4. Lua added integers alongside flonums in 5.3, along with bitwise operators, but it's been possible to configure Lua's number representation at compile time for as long as I can remember. Prior to 5.3, anyone with a usecase that really necessitated bitwise operations could easily add them with a dozen lines of C code, or they could use LuaJIT which has offered bitops for some time. I agree completely with points 5 and 6; nothing to add there :) [1]: https://www.lua.org/doc/hopl.pdf https://www.lua.org/doc/hopl.pdf